[The dermal connective tissue of leprosy patients. Part 1. The elastic fibers and the skin appendages].

Leprosy patients who are keeping long quiescent conditions show some characteristic changes clinically on their skins. The elastic fibers and skin appendages are important factors for the peculiar skin characters. We calculated the collagen and elastic fibers in the limbs and redundant facial skins of leprosy patients by automated computerized image analyser. Histopathological studies of these samples were also done. All cases were over sixty years old and many of them were in quiescent conditions. The control cases were taken from the same parts of age matched normal skins. We found the dermal thickness of lower legs of patients was significantly lower than that of controls. The amount of collagen fibers had tendensy of decrease accompanied with decreased dermal thickness, but the elastic fibers of leprosy patients did not show the same tendensy. In the patients' skin, the elastic fibers arranged irregularly, sometimes fragmented and focally coagressed. Skin appendages were greatly decreased and intraepidermal pores of sweat ducts were almost disappeared, but many sweat glands have survived. Of the facial skins, only 1 case showed a compatible feature with solar elastosis. We concluded that the dermal elastic fibers of leprosy patients had characteristic features. The types of leprosy, duration periods of active condition, destructed dermal structures, all these factors were suspected to have some relations with these phenomena.